What is Stories of the Wyrd?
Funny thing about most
authors on social media is how difficult it is to find our actual writing. Our
pages lack mention or links of what we’re working on, what we’re selling, what
we’ve done. Some make one status update and then believe that it’s easy to find
in the multitudes of posts proceeding it. Some have plastered their pages with
their story, and yet the way they went about it yields no effect; their
wallpaper of their cover art is poorly positioned and illegible or outright
ignorable. Their book covers don’t even look like book covers. Their post about
“five star reviews” doesn’t mention the title or provide a link. A good number
of writers have generic pennames and titles that do not elicit any results in a
Google or Amazon search. Some of us don’t talk about it much. We don’t
advertise, and we even can expect people to already know what our work is, so
why badger them with it? It is amazing how many of my Facebook friends have
likely lost a sale from me simply because they made it far too hard to find any
mention of their books. But I’m no better.
When I first started
becoming active on social media, I had been published in literary journals and
had a few small play premieres in Los Angeles, but no books for sale, nothing
really to send my readers to. As I’ve said before, writing in isolation is
difficult, and having an online presence is sometimes said a bonus to your
credibility for agents who are considering picking you up. I decided to start
building up my fan base before I had a big product to pitch because it was
something I could do that would make me feel productive while I wallowed away
in my room, hacking out pages on my computer, and waiting to hear back from
places I’d submitted to. It gained me a little bit of control over my career.
Every once in a while I
would get a message from someone interested in checking out my books, to which
I had to reply that I had none available to the public yet. They would ask me
why I’m not advertising, and it was simply because I had nothing to advertise.
In ways, it was hard to tell someone who was going out of their way to learn
more about you that what they saw was what they got.
I started Stories of the Wyrd for the same
feeling of futility that made me turn to social media. I have been writing for
years and years, and for the first ten or so it wasn’t a big deal to never have
anyone read it. In fact, for the first half I really didn’t ask anyone to look
over my writing and it didn’t bother me. Of course, I believed that I would be
published within the next three years or so if I ever just forced myself to
edit and submit. Then I got to a point where I very much wanted to improve my
work and really go out to get external feedback. But feedback and criticism
isn’t the same as having a simple reader, and within the last few years it
started to get overwhelmingly frustrating to always be writing and never be
read.
I have completed
manuscripts of course. I have many that I’ve gone through several drafts, that
I enjoy, and that I could see as being good enough to be published—one day. But
none of them are ready, they’re just
not quite right. I know that I could do more with them and so I refuse to do
anything with them.
Three years ago, as I
realized just how long it would take me to get a book out even if I chose to
self-publish, as I started to fixate on marketability, nitpick on words, tone
down my voice, and severely restrict myself based on what I felt agents would
want to hear, I knew that I needed to find an outlet for my creativity, a place
to experiment, to take risks, and to stop worrying so much about what other
people think.
More than that, I needed
to stop writing in a vacuum.
The Stories of the Wyrd idea came from me misunderstanding a description in a
Cracked.com article. They were discussing how The Terminator was stolen from a horror serial back in the day, and
I thought, I want to write a serial of shorts! While they had actually been
referring to shorts as in T.V., something akin to the Twilight Zone, the idea had already been planted.
I didn’t want to post
online fiction because no one reads it. I don’t in particular because it is so
likely to go abandoned, it is often a first draft and there tends to be
mistakes of plot holes and loose threads, not to mention the typos. As an
interesting example, The Martian originally
took off after Andy Weir started
selling it for a dollar. For whatever reason, novels available on a blogging
site put me off, and I attribute it to the lack of accountability. I would
rather go to the trouble of downloading an ebook than read a chapter by chapter
posting.
Meanwhile, I had happened
upon Leigh Bardugo’s “The Witch of Duva,” and this amazing short story had me
hooked from beginning to end and haunted me long after I finished. It was
because of this piece, available for free online at the time, that I went out
and bought her novel, Shadow and Bone.
Prior to my Terminator epiphany, I had considered
online short stories. A few of mine were already available through some of the
e-zines and online copies of the journals I had been published in, but most of
my short stories are different than my typical voice. I didn’t feel like they
were a grand demonstration of what my novels are like.
And I’m not a big fan of
short stories. There are some anthologies and short story writers that I love,
like Tobias Wolff, Stephen King, and Chuck Palahniuk, but they tend to be
authors I’ve already known or just lauded enough that I finally do venture to
give them a chance.
My main motto in writing
is to not be a hypocrite, even if I know people differ in opinion. That means
that while I am allowed to write about the things I like (whether or not
everyone likes them), I also cannot think something I don’t like is different
just because it’s me doing it. So while I know there are people who like short
stories, because I don’t, I have to tackle the problem and try to figure out
what I don’t like about them.
What bothers me about
short stories? What bothers me about novellas for that matter?
You start to get into them
right when they’re over.
I have commitment issues,
especially when it comes to books. I tend to get attached to things quickly and
being betrayed or disappointed is intolerable. When I start a novel, I rarely
let myself abandon it. I spend a lot of my initial introduction refusing to
invest any emotions into it, which, unfortunately, makes me enjoy it less.
In a novel, this isn’t a
big deal. By around page thirty, you start to get to know the characters,
understand the world, and get a vibe for who the author is and his perspective,
if you can count on him, if he’s lazy or ignorant or really has your best
interest at heart. Those first pages in which I am refusing to let myself care
or feel for these people (not until I know this writer isn’t going to screw me
over) are boring, but it’s not that big of a deal because I have several
hundreds of pages to enjoy now.
With short stories, by the
time I start to realize that I’m enjoying it, that I like the characters, or
that I’m interested in where it’s going, it’s over.
And, I know. If short
stories are so short, then why can’t I just expect to enjoy it, invest my
emotions and time, and get over it when they fall short? Because I’m defensive,
damn it. My feelings are easily devastated by being misplaced. And most short
stories are terrible, especially from an author you’ve never heard of before.
Bardugo’s short story was
the exception. Hers I liked purely on the merit of that story alone. Usually,
when I do like them, I like anthologies, and the connection they have with the
author. The writer, his voice, his attitude, his philosophy, becomes a
character in itself, and so I feel the attachment to him, a trust in him, and
instead of having to reset every new story, I am far more comfortable in their
world.
So I had been mulling
around the idea of writing online short stories, but I didn’t think I would do
it. I just couldn’t see it as being something I (a reader) would be interested
in.
But this Twilight Zone idea seemed to solve the
problem I had with online fiction. While writing episodic short stories—stories
with a standalone plot and solution—my readers wouldn’t have to worry about if
I finished the project or not because they would be, in theory, satisfying on
their own. Yet, I wouldn’t have to worry about the difficulty of investing in
short stories because if you did grow to love the characters, they would
return.
In January 2014, I decided
to spend the year stocking up stories featuring the same characters to then
post online. In December 2014, I premiered the website with four of them. Today
I try to post one on the first of every month.
Rasmus and Kaia were
originally protagonists of my twelfth manuscript, Silver Diggers. Kaia had been one of the first female characters to
act as I originally envisioned instead of being a mouthy know-it-all who could
only be considered humorous when laughing at her. (Freudian.) Her relationship
with her brother was the charming obnoxiousness of Calvin and the wise,
sarcastic watchfulness of Hobbes that I had been wanting to achieve for some
time. I loved the characters and had great hopes for them.
It was written way back in
2011, featuring siblings who lived in a loosely Scandinavian world, featuring
folklore in the vast wilderness and the industrial growth in the cities. A sort
of steampunk meets dark fairytale. They were traveled the poor villagers and
attempted to solve their problems of the supernatural. What they couldn’t find,
they made up.
I decided to change the
manuscript into the serial for several reasons. One featured my original
intention, that Silver Diggers would
be an episodic novel, and that there would be the set up and the conclusion,
but many different conflicts and plotlines in between.
It didn’t quite work out.
The premise wasn’t strong enough to hook the reader in, and many of the stories
felt disjointed and rambling. It didn’t read episodic as much as messy, and as
I took to editing it, I found myself changing the entire vision to a more
traditional plotline. I added in a main conflict to be introduced after (what I
call) the cold opening, and cut a great deal of chapters that were stand alone
and seemingly unrelated.
When I realized that Silver Diggers’ original vision was akin
to what I wanted for the serial, it became obvious that, even though it meant
it would never be bound and sold as I originally had hoped, it could better
become what it truly wanted to be.
And not only did I have
all of these side stories and plot arc that would be great in this medium, the
fact that Rasmus and Kaia were brother and sister meant that I wouldn’t have to
deal with a “will they or won’t they” storyline throughout the entire series,
but rather allow them to have relationships and break-ups as they will instead
of dancing around it for however long the series runs for.
It made a lot of sense.
I don’t remember exactly
what caused me to change the name from Silver
Diggers to Stories of the Wyrd,
but it seems more fitting anyway. I never was really in love with Silver Diggers (a reference to the
selfish and scheming nature of gold diggers merged with the power of silver
against supernatural forces).
Stories of the Wyrd is exactly what it sounds like.
While the Wyrd, in
reality, is a Celtic idea meaning personal destiny, I used the term to title
the supernatural world in which the creatures and monsters leak out from. Few
actually witness the boundary, but when they do, it appears as a vague, gray
void, flooding out from nothing, the insides dull and empty.
It shifts around the
region, but avoids larger parts of humanity, only targeting villages stationed
far from the larger cities, ones who are collecting unique resources, escaping
persecution, or are wayward stations between two frequently traveled points.
I used the word for two
reasons. One, we’ll be honest, it sounds like weird and rolls off the tongue
well. Two, more aptly, it is a supernatural and enigmatic force that has
uncontrollable and frightening influence over humans. But mostly that first
thing.
Stories of the Wyrd is a pet project, something enjoyable for me, an escape in which I can
take chances and write tales in the way that I like to read, even when I know
that I’m the oddball out, or worse, am still interested in things already
discussed long and thoroughly before I touched them. It is a series of
unchronological shorts featuring sarcastic characters in a supernatural world
and is, more than anything, what I want to write in the way I want to write it.
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